Daniel Ricciardo may have finished at the top of the timing sheets on the opening day of pre-season testing on Monday, but the Australian knows the extreme cold conditions means very little was learned during the day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The Aston Martin Red Bull Racing driver set the best time of the day of 1:20.179s when the track was at its best during the morning session, 0.170 seconds clear of Valtteri Bottas, and he was the only driver on the day to break the one-hundred lap mark.
Ricciardo said he was pleased with the reliability of the Renault-powered RB14, but admits not much could truly be learned due to the difficult, cold conditions.
“That was… cold! But apart from that it was good,” said Ricciardo. “In the morning when it was dry everything was fine but in the afternoon the conditions were really tricky.
“It’s hard to get anything working with tyres in these temperatures, especially as they’ve also re-laid the surface. When the temperature is there it’s good, but when it’s cold there really isn’t any grip!
“However, it was still a good day and we got over 100 laps done, with, I think, one run of 35 laps. So reliability was solid and hats off to everyone for that. Performance? Yeah, It’s nice to see yourself at the top of the timesheets but in two-degree temperatures you really can’t learn anything!”
